


one, two, three thousand

by Neelh



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 10:45:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19083442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neelh/pseuds/Neelh
Summary: “I love you too,” Morgan replies, leaning her head into his hand.Her eyes are closed, so she doesn’t see Tony’s smirk. “I love you three.”(or, tony stark always pushes the limits of what's possible)





	one, two, three thousand

Tony smiles down at his daughter, at her wide brown eyes, and how her hair spreads across the pillow in fluffy strands, all connected together in webs of individual hairs.

“You’ve got a bit of chocolate on your cheek there,” he tells her.

By the time he’s withdrawn his thumb into his sleeve, ready to wipe the chocolate smudge away, Morgan’s already licking at the corner of her mouth. Her arms are still tucked under the duvet, with a bulge that indicates that she’s clinging to her plush seal toy. He is called Cactus. Tony’s introduction to him was the point that he realised that he’d never shown his two-year-old a cactus before.

Of course, no matter how much she licks, she can’t reach the chocolate smudge. Her tongue is too little and her cheeks are too adorably round. All she’s really doing is getting slobber on her face.

So Tony wipes the chocolate off, and dries her mouth, and all the thanks he gets is her pouting.

“It was gonna be my snack,” she whines. Her bottom lip makes its way forth to stand in a prominent pout.

“You’ve already had your snack, though,” he replies.

Morgan fixes him with a look. It makes her look a little like Pepper, if Pepper was a toddler, and that’s a weird mental image, so Tony’s going to leave it alone, but there’s something else about it. Is this what he looked like when Pepper made him leave his workshop? Or maybe it’s an expression unique to Morgan.

“I love you,” he says, softly. When he holds her head against his hand, and runs a thumb over the wisps of hair on her temple, he doesn’t let himself see anyone but her. Her room is bathed in a yellow lamplight, not orange.

He can give the world to Morgan. He could teach her everything he knows, and mould her into a mind sharper than his own. He could send her to auditions and have her become the best child actress since Emma Watson.

Or, he could promise her cocoa pops and apple slices in the morning, and smile at her considering look, then the serious nod of assent.

“I love you too,” she replies, leaning her head into his hand.

Morgan’s eyes are closed, so she doesn’t see Tony’s smirk. “I love you three.”

She opens the eye furthest away from his hand and shoots an unimpressed glare. It’s adorable. “I love you three _thousand_.”

Tony hisses between his grinning teeth. “Woah, that’s a lot.”

“It is,” she says. “But it’s not the biggest number. There’s three million, and three trillion, and three gazillion…”

Her sentence is cut off with a yawn, and she snuggles further into his palm. If Tony could wrap Morgan up in his love for her, like a suit of armour around-

Around-

Around his daughter, he would. He’d keep her so safe, and her heart would never break, but that wouldn’t be right. She has to bruise and hurt to live.

But Tony would look after her, and help her wounds heal, and make sure that she always – always, _always_ – goes home. She can explore to the ends of the world, but no further.

“I hate to tell you this, but three thousand is kind of the maximum amount of love,” he tells her, instead of this. “Like, you can’t love someone more than three thousand. It can’t be done, missy.”

“’S that s’pposed to mean?” she asks. Her words get slurred together with a line of dribble onto his palm. He leaves it be, because his hand is basically Morgan’s new pillow now.

“You know how a bunch of electronics have set limits for things?” he says. “Like, the volume on the old stereo only went up to ten, or the longest that you can put the microwave on for is ninety-nine minutes and fifty seconds?”

Morgan’s response is an astoundingly loquacious “Mn.”

“Well, the love maximum is three thousand. Three thousand loves for a single person, thing, or abstract concept. Any more and you’ll explode.” Tony waves his free hand for emphasis to the delight of a single person: himself. “Boom. So, yeah, you just told me that you love me as much as you physically can. So, thanks.”

He waits a minute or so for a reply, absently rubbing her cheek with the thumb of his pinned hand.

He leans down to kiss her on the forehead. When that elicits no reaction, he leans down again, and blows a gentle raspberry on the same spot.

Still nothing.

Huh, she must be conked out.

Tony wiggles his trapped hand slowly, inching it out from under her cheek like a very strong group of caterpillars that can survive being smooshed by a toddler face. And, yep. That’s gross. He’s going to have to disinfect that hand, because that’s a puddle of toddler mouth juice in his palm.

Morgan lets out a sigh through her nose and curls up tighter around Cactus the Seal, and that’s worth everything. That’s worth the slobber on the hands and the puke he’s washed off of bedsheets and every diaper he has ever changed.

If three thousand is the maximum amount of love that can be felt for a single person, then Tony’s still pushing limits, even without Iron Man. Three thousand isn’t a big number, when compared to every breath that Morgan takes, and the sheer delight in her laugh, and her playful aloofness. Tony’s gone past millions and trillions and gazillions. He’s left squillion and quadripdrillion in the dust. He’s Buzz Lightyear, soaring through space to infinity and beyond-

He makes the mistake of closing his eyes for too long, and the yellow lamp turns orange. Morgan’s body is longer, broader, and a weak voice apologises.

No. That’s in the past. Morgan’s hair is spread across her pillow in fluffy stands. Like webs, yes, but also, just like Morgan’s hair. Tony might braid it tomorrow, and brush out the knots. And then he’ll tell Morgan that he loves her three thousand, and keep his broken limits secret.

 

 

 


End file.
